AUGUST 28

5 THINGS WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO AT VMWORLD 2017

When it comes to getting the latest perspectives on what’s hot in IT today and what’s coming next, VMworld 2017 is the place to be. Since 2004, the annual event is the world’s largest conference dedicated on virtualization and cloud computing technologies.

Hundreds of vendors and thousands of IT professionals and technologists have converged on Las Vegas for this year’s VMworld. Idea Grove is here on the ground, too, because our clients are among the leaders in the virtualization and cloud computing spaces. We’re here to stand with them, to see how other companies position themselves, and, frankly, because technology is what our clients and their customers live and breathe.

In short, we’re here to stay on top of what’s new and breaking, so we can help position our clients to stay ahead of the pack.

While it’s hard to narrow it down, here are five of the many things we’re looking forward to this week.

#1 Keynote on Transforming Networking and Security for the Digital Era

With more and more companies moving onto virtualized environments, networking and security now need to focus more on business applications and less on the underlying physical infrastructure. In other words, in a world where we don’t deal directly with physical servers and cabling, we have to shift our thinking to cover virtual machines, hybrid cloud environments and mobile and IoT endpoints.

At Tuesday’s keynote, the executives and architects at VMware will help us understand how our clients can make this shift, so we can help them educate their customers to do the same.

What’s next for VMware and the businesses out there that rely and build upon on its products? From IT to software development, DevOps to security, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and software-defined technologies—not to mention the cloud on which so many of these are built—have transformed the technology landscape. But the transformation has just begun.

This morning’s general session gave us some firsthand examples of companies that are successfully riding the wave, plus a taste of how VMware plans to incorporate machine learning, AI, IoT, new cyber security techniques and many other benefits into its products.

#3 Embracing Innovation to Become (and Remain) Competitive

This is a topic that resonates with many of our clients, because they’ve become leaders in innovative technology themselves. The session,” Technology Innovation is What Keeps Companies Competitive,” will remind us how today’s marketplace demands that both we and our clients innovate in new and unexpected ways.

On Tuesday, we’ll learn as the VMware team transforms a fictional company from industry laggard to industry leader (their words) by embracing not only VMware, but other open-sources technologies.

#4 Extending Voice Technology into Business

We love voice technology and how quickly it’s been adopted by consumers. But how does that translate to the business space and particularly to virtualization?

There’s a Hack-a-Thon today, but on Thursday, we’re hoping to get a closer look at how developers are integrating Amazon’s Alexa voice technology with VMware’s product suite. (At the moment, we’re on a waiting list for this session, Furthering Amazon Echo and VMware Integration.)

#5 Rocking with Blink-182 and Bleachers

What would VMworld in Las Vegas be without the VMworld customer appreciate party? This year, we’ll rock out in the in T-Mobile Arena with Blink-182 and Bleachers for a Wednesday night of food, drink and fun—and some great music and photo ops, too.

Now, on with the show

Of course, we’re also looking forward to tweeting for our clients and sharing selfies from our favorite booths (#vmworldselfie). But staying on top of the latest tech developments means we can better keep our clients positioned as leaders in their respective fields—that’s why we’re here.